Georgia offers evidence that Russia made the first move. (login NYT ; Bugmenot)
posted on Sep 16, 2008 - View this thread

Why I had to recognise Georgia’s breakaway regions, by Dmitry Medvedev.
posted on Aug 27, 2008 - View this thread

Turkish journalists were caught in a war zone while on the job. The Turkish team was in between the town of Gori and breakaway South Ossetia where Georgian and Russian forces have collided. The video is from the inside of the car being shot at with automatic weapons.
posted on Aug 21, 2008 - View this thread

"Magnum photographer Thomas Dworzak is in Georgia for The Wall Street Journal. His photographic essays from the region span two decades and tell a moving story of the people and now war there."
posted on Aug 18, 2008 - View this thread

The Russo-Georgian War and the Balance of Power- the Russian invasion of Georgia has not changed the balance of power in Eurasia. It simply announced that the balance of power had already shifted.
posted on Aug 14, 2008 - View this thread

Some books you might want to read about the US and recent political developments in the world.
posted on Aug 8, 2008 - View this thread

Reports are coming in of up to 150 armoured vehicles entering South Ossetia.
posted on Aug 8, 2008 - View this thread

SCAD Shorts, playful videos that stretch the imagination are from The Dandy Dwarves, an eclectic group of students who formed a video production company while attending Savannah College of Art Design. Each month the dwarves will release a brand new video short like the recent Scribe Conjures Alternate Dimension. It’s up to us to create fitting, descriptive, and creative S-C-A-D titles for each new video.
posted on Jul 8, 2008 - View this thread

Streaming audio of traditional music from the former Soviet republic of Georgia. This is some of the strangest, most haunting and blissed-out singing you can hear on this planet. (And check out those swell outfits, fellas!)
posted on Mar 11, 2008 - View this thread

Tennesse and Georgia's war over water There are about five million residents in north Georgia affected by the drought. The phrase "if its brown flush it down, if its yellow let it mellow" has become part of the local jargon in an attempt to encourage water conservation.
posted on Feb 22, 2008 - View this thread

Now that Kosovo has declared independence, will Abkhazia follow? The Abkhazian "autonomy" within Georgia already has its own president and parliament, as well as an independent army that has managed to expel Georgian presence by 1993. They've even got their own flag. The only thing missing? Official recognition from the UN.
posted on Feb 21, 2008 - View this thread

It has been called the Last Battlefield of World War II in Europe.
posted on Dec 10, 2007 - View this thread

How do regional clusters of economic activity get started? For example, why is Dalton, a town in northern Georgia, the center of the American carpet industry? It started with a farm girl named Catherine Evans, who made a tufted bedspread as a wedding present in 1900. Via Paul Krugman.
posted on Nov 10, 2007 - View this thread

Live footage (in Georgian) as special police forces shut down dissident Georgian TV station IMEDI amid Tbilisi protests; the anchor staunchly trods on (transl. English by RussiaToday). IMEDI TV is co-owned by News Corp.
posted on Nov 7, 2007 - View this thread

Georgia's Supreme Court has agreed that Genarlow Wilson's 10-year prison sentence without the possibility of parole and accompanying lifetime sex offender status was cruel and unusual. Previously on MeFi.
posted on Oct 26, 2007 - View this thread

Georgia's going dry -- and we're not talking liquor stores. Record temperatures in Georgia and a long drought have left many Georgia cities wondering when the taps will run dry. Some towns have only a few weeks of water left, while rivers near Athens have nearly dried up. A broken water main hasn't helped the problem, and some fear that the University of Georgia campus there may shut down for lack of water. What's more, Atlanta itself is already feeling the pressure, as Lake Lanier, a water source for 3 million residents, falls by 1.5 feet per week and has only a three month supply remaining. While there have been more severe (pdf) droughts in Georgia's history, rising population numbers have increased demand to now unsustainable levels.
posted on Oct 13, 2007 - View this thread

Pablo's Penis Prosecution, the crazy case against comic retailer Gorden Lee was supposed to start today. Only the judge was sick, or the air conditioner was broken, or maybe the prosecution wants to drop all the charges and refile...again. Interesting to note that the judge presiding over the case has ruled against Mr. Lee in a previous prosecution for comics obscenity. Previous MeFi discussion, before the original charges were all dropped 18 hours before trial.
posted on Aug 15, 2007 - View this thread

Genarlow Wilson, now 19, had his sentence reversed today and is expected to leave prison shortly. He served two years of his ten-year-sentence for engaging in consensual sex acts with a fellow teenager. Previously discussed here.
posted on Jun 11, 2007 - View this thread

Why is Genarlow Wilson in Prison? Genarlow Wilson sits in prison despite being a good son, a good athlete and high school student with a 3.2 GPA. He never had any criminal trouble. On the day he was to sit for the SAT, at seventeen years old, his life changed forever. He was arrested. In Douglas County he was accused of inappropriate sexual acts at a New Year’s Eve party. A jury acquitted him of the allegation of Rape but convicted him of Aggravated Child Molestation for a voluntary act of oral sex with another teenager. He was 17, and she was 15.

On July 1st, the new Romeo and Juliet law went into effect in Georgia for any other teen that engages in consensual sexual acts. That change in the law means that no teen prosecuted for consensual oral sex could receive more than a 12 months sentence or be required to register as a sex offender. But since the law was not changed retroactively, Genarlow Wilson must serve his mandatory sentence of 10 years in prison, without parole.
posted on Jan 25, 2007 - View this thread

Georgia mayor bans soccer from local park. Georgia mayor bans soccer from local park. “There will be nothing but baseball and football down there as long as I am mayor,”
posted on Jan 23, 2007 - View this thread

Where are you going? Where we came from. Where have we come from? Every place and no place, so come, let’s go.
posted on Nov 20, 2006 - View this thread

NewsFilter: Restoring faith in the electoral process (a little bit at a time): "An upbeat Reed told a crowd of a few dozen cheering supporters that, although his candidacy had ended, his conservative message will live on." [CNN] Ralph Reed loses the election for Georgia lieutenant governor (56% to 44% at the writing of this bit). Apparently a few people in Georgia read GQ. Or maybe MetaFilter. Or the news, too, I suppose.
posted on Jul 18, 2006 - View this thread

The Strange Case Of Gordon Lee. “It is highly unusual to have a single defendant face three arraignments in less than two years for the same alleged criminal conduct. In my fifteen years of practice, I have never seen such an occurrence.”* [more inside]
posted on Jun 16, 2006 - View this thread

Yo La Tengo is Murdering the Classics (via). Spontaneous cover magic from the great YLT.
posted on Apr 27, 2006 - View this thread

The ninja problem at one university has been quelled, thanks to the performance of your federal agents. Turns out, the perp was a costumed college student heading back from a church-related event. Think these guys will help him sue?
posted on Apr 12, 2006 - View this thread

George Perry, a poor 19 year old farmer, set the world all-tackle record for large mouth bass in 1932, when he caught a 22 pound, 4 ounce bass in Montgomery Lake, Georgia. It's a good story -- he was a poor farmer, he and his buddy only had one lure, it was during the Depression, and the fish was not caught for sport but for food. Furthermore, it was only weighed as an afterthought, after he was told that Field and Stream had a big bass contest that paid a $75 prize. Amazingly, that record has stood for over 73 years. In the interim, sport fishing for bass has become widely popular around the world, a multi-billion dollar market served by its own retail establishments, tournament tour, TV shows, corporate sponsorships, and legions of amateur fisher-men and -women, all trying to catch a bass bigger than the one George Perry caught back in 1932.

On Monday, after years of trying, a trio of San Diego fisherman hooked a 25 pound, 1 ounce fish that may have broken that record. (Includes picture of obscenely huge large mouth bass.) And they let it go, passing up potentially millions of dollars in endorsements. And their decision to release the fish and not pursue the record is the real story here.
posted on Mar 23, 2006 - View this thread

Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court held in a 5-3 decision (.pdf) that police may not search a home if any inhabitant of the home is present and objects to the search, even if another inhabitant consents. The Court drew what it acknowledged is a “fine line” – if a co-inhabitant is at the door and objects, the police can’t enter; but if the co-inhabitant is somewhere else – even in a nearby police car – and has no opportunity to object, then police don’t need his or her consent. Chief Justice Roberts issued his first written dissent, blasting the majority’s “random” and “arbitrary” rule and suggesting that the ability of police to respond to domestic violence threats could be compromised. The zingers in the footnotes may reveal “strains behind the surface placidity and collegiality of the young Roberts court.”
posted on Mar 23, 2006 - View this thread

"Do you want to see niggers in the state capital with their feet on the desk?"
"This newspaper believes in white supremacy, and it believes that the poll tax is one of the essentials for the preservation of white supremacy." From "Suffrage in the South" Part I, published January 1st, 1940 [mi]
posted on Nov 17, 2005 - View this thread

Terrorist attack on Georgia Tech campus. A bomb explodes on the East Campus of Georgia Tech within a mile of the Centennial Olympic Park where Eric Rudolph , in another act of terrorism, set off an explosive device during the 1996 Summer Olympics. This is a terror attack on one of America's leading research institutions supporting the War on Terror. This a terror attack on the institution designing safer cars against roadside bombs for the military. This is a terror attack on an institution whose security services are closely aligned with the Department of Homeland Security. This is a terror attack on the first university in the deep south to admit African Americans without a court order. This is a terror attack on institution whose freedom loving football team is struggling to recover from two consecutive losses after a 3-0 start. It is an act of terror on American soil. Where is George?
posted on Oct 11, 2005 - View this thread

The BTC Pipeline opened today after more than 10 years and $4B (US) in development. It runs from the Caspian Sea across Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey, through the Caucasus mountain range to the Mediterranean. The project is so large and far-reaching some have called it Pipelineistan. The UK Independent calls it The Pipeline That Will Change The World. It travels through some of the most politically unstable regions in Central Asia, but is of such strategic importance political leaders have been replaced and the U.S. is willing to risk the wrath of neighbors Russia (with a competing pipeline of its own) and Iran to place permanent U.S. military bases along its path. It even merits personal visits from the U.S. Energy Secretary and President. Its opening may very well mark the return of the Great Game.
posted on May 25, 2005 - View this thread

"Well, of course, we do mules down on the farm in Georgia. It's the natural swing of things, you naive lefty you." Neal Horsley is certainly one of the more interesting right-wing hypocrites living in these interesting times. [via Wonkette]
posted on May 9, 2005 - View this thread

"I don't think I saw one white person besides the people in my girl scout troop..." and other unconscious racist reviews about Atlanta, Georgia. Don't believe me? Just ask Chiquita, she'll direct you away from all those filty, dirty, unworthy homeless people (but hey, if you're gay and do not prefer those club going Queens then A-town is for you, playa)!
posted on Apr 27, 2005 - View this thread

The legend of Hogzilla approaches its dramatic conclusion.
posted on Mar 19, 2005 - View this thread

The many seasons of kudzu. In Georgia, the legend says that you must close your windows at night to keep it out of the house. Love it or run.
posted on Dec 19, 2004 - View this thread

The Alien Plant.
In Georgia, the legend says
That you must close your windows
At night to keep it out of the house.
posted on Nov 11, 2004 - View this thread

"The Atlanta Time Machine website is dedicated to examining the history of Atlanta, Georgia  by comparing vintage photographs of Atlanta with much more contemporary images shot, more or less, from the same perspective of the original photographer." [via kottke.org]
posted on Jun 29, 2004 - View this thread

"Evolution" Allowed to Remain in Georgia. "I made the decision to remove the word evolution from the draft of the proposed biology curriculum in an effort to avoid controversy that would prevent people from reading the substance of the document itself," [Georgia State Schools Superintendent Kathy] Cox said in a statement. "Instead, a greater controversy ensued."

A follow-up to this January 30 post.
posted on Feb 5, 2004 - View this thread

Georgia considers banning 'evolution' OUTSTANDING! Nice work guys. Meet the new south, same as the old south?
posted on Jan 30, 2004 - View this thread

Political chaos grips Georgia

Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze has declared a state of emergency after opposition forces seized parliament. He refused to resign and said the armed forces would now take over after what he called a coup attempt.

A rough rundown on the current situation, Google News
posted on Nov 22, 2003 - View this thread

D'you know about the Georgia and Carolinas' sea island culture of the Gullah? Mostly known for their crafts which can fetch a pretty penny, the Gullah way of life (which may be endangered) is an interesting synthesis of American and African culture. They speak a unique dialect of English, which you can hear with Aunt Pearlie-Sue's folktales. Of course, there's the food... check out the recipies for Frogmore Stew and other classic island cuisine.
posted on Nov 10, 2003 - View this thread

Black sues black for racism. "Dwight Burch, a former [Applebee's] employee, accused his manager at the Jonesboro, Ga., restaurant of repeatedly referring to him as a 'tar baby' and 'Black monkey' during his three months at the restaurant." Here's the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission press release about the lawsuit (settled out of court for $40,000). The EEOC calls the case "rare"; BET says it's "increasingly common". But wait a minute: since black males make it a point to call each other "nigger", how can you tell self-deprecating camaraderie from self-loathing colorism?
posted on Aug 16, 2003 - View this thread

"Visitors can imagine children sleeping in shacks infested with scorpions or snakes."

Come on down to scenic Americus, Georgia, and take in an eyeful of filth and despair! I've always been a big supporter of Habitat for Humanity, but is a poverty theme park really a good idea?
posted on Jun 3, 2003 - View this thread

Georgia high school has white only prom. ...dunno what else to say about that.
posted on May 2, 2003 - View this thread

talking loud, voting on nothing. georgia's new governor is following through on his campaign promise to "let the people speak" regarding the design of our state flag. the flag was last redesigned in 2001 to put to rest a substantial amount of controversy revolving around the inclusion of a confederate battle flag.

this opportunity to voice an opinion will be offered to the populace next spring in the form of a non-binding referendum. and while the results will not result in an official decision either way, the mayor of atlanta has said she will take a strong stance in the matter by "purposely not [voting] either way on the ballot questions."

is doing nothing an effective means of protest? sounds more like a kid on a playground declaring themselves "switzerland" in the middle of a fight.
posted on Feb 19, 2003 - View this thread

attention georgia citizens. you will be pleased to know that you are now free to fornicate at will. that's right! for the first time in 120 years, it is no longer illegal in the great peach state to get to know your neighbor in that special way.
posted on Jan 13, 2003 - View this thread

Election results got you down? Feel like drowning your sorrows, but don't have much to spend? If you're in Athens, GA, you can use the beerometer, thoughtfully provided by the local mainstream newspaper, to get the most beer for your buck.
posted on Nov 6, 2002 - View this thread

Today, Georgia becomes the first state in the US to have standardized, state-wide electronic voting. Not wanting to be "the next Florida", Georgia spent nearly $60M to go from paper punch cards to touch screens. What's in store, fame or infamy? After using the computer myself and hearing raves from all the sweet old ladies, I'll bet on the former.
posted on Nov 5, 2002 - View this thread

The Appalachian Trail is a continuous marked footpath that goes from Katahdin in Maine to Springer Mountain in Georgia, a distance of about 2160 miles. It passes through 14 states and takes about 5 to 7 months to hike through. Hey, if a blind man could do it, so can you. If you are not actually up for hiking right this moment, you could always...(more inside)
posted on Oct 8, 2002 - View this thread

The Ultimatum has been delivered to the UN... This conflict, simmering for over ten years is about to erupt. "In strict accordance with international law," unilatteral military action is imminent unless demands are met. Animosity has been mounting steadily for months, and Russia is ready to invade Georgia. "No one can deny today, and for ourselves we are certain, that Georgian territory is sheltering both those who are implicated in the attacks on the United States and a direct operative involved in the attacks on housing units in Russia," Mr. Putin said on Russian television, echoing the logic U.S. President George W. Bush has used to rally international support for a pre-emptive strike on Iraq. The United States said it would not support Mr. Putin if he carried out his threat to attack Chechen rebel bases in Georgia, and slammed him for suggesting he might. "The United States strongly supports Georgia's territorial integrity and would oppose any unilateral military action by Russia inside Georgia," a U.S. State Department spokesman said. This all seems rather hypocritical, business as usual new world order politics: Is the price of getting UN Security Council approval on Iraq going to be public and secret deals, and is this really about the Chechens, or about breakaway republics and Caspian Sea oil? And what about China? Will we rubberstamp their ambitions re: Taiwan, Spratley Islands, Mongolia? And finally, why Georgia? I know they put up a two-bit Olympics and never caught that one terrorist bomber, but really, Georgia?
posted on Sep 13, 2002 - View this thread

You Opportunity To Jump For Joy At the Defeat of a Dreadful, Icky, Arguably EVIL person. No more Bob Barr!
posted on Aug 20, 2002 - View this thread